At the end of Ratatouille the cynical jaded critic is sent back to childhood wonder by the simple dish of the punning title – there he finds what he has missed for so long; simple joy. Having watched innumerable films of varying quality I often find myself feeling jaded – familiarity with the form can breed, if not contempt exactly, an ennui. Then along comes a crazy bonkers film like Turbo Kid and a tantalizing moment of long forgotten simple childhood joy in films comes rushing back. I watched with a smile plastered across my face as the future wasteland of 1997 was invaded by BMX chases and robotic love. It’s the film we all wanted in the 1980s but never quite got, at once innocent and ridiculously violent, following an naive young man as he embraces his destiny to save the wasteland from the evil Zeus (Michael Ironside!) and his henchmen (who, correctly, have been dressed out of a sporting goods store). It’s like someone put BMX Bandits, Cyborg, Solar Babies, Mad Max and Cherry 2000 into a blender, and out spurted this wonderful madness.

Kudos must go to the writers and director for hitting the right balance between pastiche and parody; the film mock 80s cliches but never ridicules them. It also showcases some of the barmiest violence I’ve seen in ages, my favourite moments involving disembowelment via BMX.

As a dedicated practitioner of the pedagogical arts I thought I should check this out to see if I could glean any tips to enhance my work. Well, first I think it’s safe to say one should never put one’s inner-city war-zone school into an experiment with a crazy eyed Stacy Keach who is determined to use reprogrammed military hard-ware as a solution to the campiest gangs since The Warriors. Also appointing Malcolm McDowall as Principal is probably a bad idea. And when one of the teachers is Pam Grier (pre-Tarantino) you’ve got to realise things will go South pretty quickly.

This B-Movie feels like someone locked the Blackboard Jungle in a room with The Terminator and supplied some Barry White CDs and Viagra. And while it’s not without its fun it suffers from a poorly conceived world in which parts of America have become “Free-Fire” zones where the police won’t go but where the Government is still funding public education. Like many future shock films it fails to answer important questions such as: where do they get all the hair gel from? How can these losers afford so many bullets? And why would McDowall’s Principal allow his peppy daughter to attend such a hell hole?

So, not great then. But fun can be had, particularly in the last 20 minutes where the budget is thoroughly used up on some dodgy pyrotechnics and stop motion work. Was enough of a cult hit to get a DTV sequel.

What was the Canadian government smoking in the late 1970s/early 1980s? Whatever is was we have their liberal ideas on film financing for the career of the great David Cronenberg, king of body-horror and overall a damn fine film-maker (watch A History of Violence if you don’t believe me, and if you do believe me watch it anyway!) Scanners is very much part of his early work, though less sexual than Rabid of The Brood. It has much of the roughness of his early films (partly due to budget and a short production time), but the ideas shine through, and this is what makes so much of Cronenberg’s films worth a look. He has great ideas. In this a thalidomide like drug has been tested on pregnant mothers, giving their children psychic powers which, in one bravura sequence, can lead to people’s heads exploding.

Not all the acting is great, but the effects work well and the pace of the film never lets up. Striding the film like a colossus is the great Michael Ironside as the bad-guy Darryl Revok – some serious acting happens whenever he’s on screen, and the film does sag a little without him. Patrick McGoohan turns up (sporting an excellent beard) to offer some sinister support. A late night treat.

There’s no surer sign of a film’s poor quality than an identity crisis. Known as Creature, Titan Find and The Titan Find, this films brings ripping off Alien to a new, but not wholly unentertaining low. On Saturn’s moon, Titan, some really stupid astronauts break a vessel that has lain undisturbed for 2000 centuries (an oddly specific number). Something breaks loose and soon enough more hapless idiots are sent to investigate. The backdrop is a trade war between the US and Germany. I couldn’t work out why Germany was the economics power of the future until Klaus Kinski arrived – have German actor, have German plot elements.

A variety of morons are picked off – with some entertaining variations on Alien. Although unexplained this monster can also control your mind via a squelchy thing on your ear. I wondered why this had been added, but then I saw the monster and understood – I would have hidden it away for as long as possible. It’s a complete rip-off of Giger’s design, but without a neck, which I guess makes it original. It also makes it moor like a penis. As if someone watched Alien and said “y’know I like it, but the alien’s not penisy enough”. It’s all rather obvious, but then Kinksi saves the day, looking like he wandered onto the set by accident and acts as if he’s in a completely different film.

It all barrells along predicatibally, with some fun as it builds towards the climax which is spectacularly ruined when a missing character re-emerges having got lost. Really.

Trivia – American Dad fans may be excited by the fact that the lead character is played Wendy Schall, the voice of Francine.

I think it’s best that I level with you. This film is terrible. I mean really shocking. It’s edited very badly, performances range from the wildly overacted to the so underplayed you can hardly tell the character exists. The plot makes some sense in the end but proceeds in such a ludicrous manner than it feels like an afterthought. In short I was thoroughly entertained.

In a distant sci-fi fantasy world there is a man called the Master. He’s mystical (you can tell because his voice is deep and booming and his face is obscured by a special effect). He likes to play crappy sci-fi chess with a crone (who has a voice-over at the beginning but disappears after the first scene). Anyway a ship has gone missing and the Master wants some people to go and investigate. To do this he chooses the biggest bunch of idiots from across the galaxy, puts them on a ship piloted by a nervous wreck, and fails to tell them what it’s all about. After some dodgy model work (by James Cameron no less!) they arrive at the planet to investigate. Low and behold they are slowly picked off one by one. But wait – what’s attacking them is their own id! This is surely what justifies the stupefying moment when a woman is raped to death by a giant worm. Really. Apparently Roger Corman, the producer, promised some nudity in the film. And that’s what they came up with. Anyway other than this poor woman being bounced upon by a giant, and rather sticky, piece of latex a variety of bizarre deaths ensue until only one crew member is left. Turns out it’s all a big cosmic game so the Master can choose his successor. It then ends. However if you want to watch a movie where Joanie from Happy Days has her face crushed to bits and Robert Englund looks bizarrely like Kenny Everett then this is for you. There are however some nice mattes. I like mattes. And look at the poster – it’s awesome. Nothing like the film, but awesome none the less.

Horror. It’s a genre that, more than any other, shows the greatness and badness of film. For every The Shining there’s a Blair Witch Project. For every Scream an I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Trailer Park of Terror exists in that bizarre netherworld of fairly well made, wacky, mash-ups. For every good idea there’s a bad. It plays like a sort of Torture Porn American Gothic comedy, recreating tropes from Texas Chainsaw and the like (the weird community in the sticks), with its own brand of wackiness (Zombie guitarist who sings songs pertinent to the action?!?). It’s not bad, or good, it just is. Generally it’s well shot with some good make-up, but there are some poor digital effects, and a general lack of character. A young white-trash girl makes a deal with the Devil that ends up with her running a trailer park of Zombies. In comes a mini-bus load of dysfunctional kids on a religious camp designed to sort out their lives. I think there may be some satire in it somewhere. People get dismembered; there’s some gratuitous nudity; it ends. Diverting but not exactly recommended – but still better the GI Joe.

The B-Movie is an art. Despite the apparent simplicity, the sometimes shoddy production, the rough makeshift dialogue, making a solid B-movie isn’t easy. For a good B-Movie you need a crisp sense of genre, an efficient director (making the most of the little they have) and an undercurrent that lends the action a sense of meaning. For good examples see Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original) and pretty much all the early John Carpenters. These are films that transcend their origins, but still deliver the cheap thrills desired.

The Raid represents the B at its best. A simple premise – police raid an apartment block to get to a drug dealer, fighting their way through the tennants – undepins some excellent, full bloodied action in which the central characters are subjected to realistic peril. The star, Iko Uwais, is a jem. Good at the action, but also capable in the dramatic scenes. Within this shell the director, Gareth Evans, manages to deliver some subtle nods towards police corruption and career choices. Excellent stuff.

Hobo with a Shotgun however is the opposite. It’s all style. Yes there’s OTT violence, but nothing underpins it. There’s not even much attempt at satire. The film is content to parody older B-Movies (it has a washed out 70s look) but fails to understand that part of the joy of them was their genuiness. The naivity was often appealing. This just looks cynical – a parody of bad film-making may just end up as a bad film (see Black Dynamite for how it should be done). I blame Tarantino – Grindhouse convinced loads of film-makers that being ironic was the same as being clever. Still Rutger Hauer is good (as always). Some actors seem to get better the worse the movie (Christopher Lee is another). Please somebody, rescue him from this shit and singing over butter ads.

Spoilers!

Delirious. Insane. One can only speculate on the psychology of the creators of this, but let’s be glad they made it. Super details the adventures ofthe Crimson Bolt (Rainn Wilson); however this is no ordinary super-hero – he’s more the psychotic loaner convinced that god wants him to hit bad guys with a wrench. Seriously. It’s like Kick Ass meets Taxi Driver.

After being abandoned by his girlfriend (Liv Tyler) for the local drugs boss (Kevin Bacon) loser Frank sees his salvation by dressing up and attacking who ever he considers to be a criminal – a long list that includes people who cut into cinema queues. Lacking in superhero knowledge he researches his new vocation by going to the local comic store. Here he recruits Libby (Ellen Page) to his cause. Soon she masked and caped and calling herself Boltie. Together they fight crime and turn a cynical mirror towards the whole Super-Hero genre: you may never look at hero/sidekick relations in the same way again.

Having ventured into the glorious world of Netflix I’ve discovered, or more accurately rediscovered, a whole host of forgotten movies. Some I only dimly recognise from their cover art – something I no-doubt spied on giant VHS cases in the local petrol station as they span hypnotically on rotating displays. Others come to me in half-memories from late night shows, panned and scanned and cut to shreds. There is always a risk in this – loved memories become trashed by the dawning realisation that impressions of films are greater than the real thing. However sometimes a half hidden gem emerges from the subconscious impressions to sear itself into your cortex again. At quick pace here are three of them, April Fool’s Day (Fred Walton, 1989), Lifeforce (Tobe Hooper, 1985) and Screamers (Christian Duguay, 1995).

The first is the best, a neat spin on the slasher with decent acting and an admirable desire to play with, and subvert, the genre long before Scream reared its head. Look out for the guy who played Biff in Back to the Future. Lifeforce is an amiable mess with some surprisingly good effects and good turns from Frank Finlay and Patrick Stewart. The leads, however, are dull and ineffective. Part Sci-Fi (Alien style) part horror, part zombie film it never really settles. But then a movie based on a novel called Space Vampires was likely to be a bit of a mess. Good for lovers of unnecessary nudity. Finally Screamers, based on Philip K. Dick’s excellent short story Second Variety. Somewhere in there, there’s a good movie trying to get out; sadly it seems to lack its convictions and the last reel is messy. For a film set on a planet laid waste by corporate war, where humans are hunted by mechanical beasts, I felt it lacked sufficient nihilism. Nice to see Peter Weller mind – he manages to rise above the shonky effects and dialogue.

Spoilers!

This is a “so bad it’s good” film I caught late last night on TV (in Pan & Scan!). Every moment, every plot development, every attempt at acting was terrible – but mesmerising non-the less. The film follows VanDamme as he tries to avenge his brother’s defeat in the ring in Thailand, learning Muay Thai and falling in love.

On paper it has all the ingredients required by any old 80s action movie: revenge motive (the hero’s brother is crippled!), gratuitous nudity (why do people always chill in strip bars?), excessive violence, cringe inducing racial insensitivity, synth-heavy power ballads and montages a plenty. What elevates (or degrades?) Kickboxer into another league and makes it stand out is the sheer ineptitude of the whole package. VanDamme (who I quite like and who can act – if only in JCVD) is dreadful; he looks like a man who has never experienced a genuine emotion. His relationship with his brother is amazing (one raised in Belgium, one in America, no physical resemblance at all) and in the early scenes, and if I didn’t know better, I could have sworn they were lovers. Still, he kicks well. The brother, Eric, thoroughly deserves his injury – he’s an arrogant, racist idiot, who sleeps with prostitutes (which in this version of Thailand seem to be the basis of the economy).

With the help of an-ex GI VanDamme takes to the hills and finds his mentor, required so he can learn true Muay Thai and not crappy American kickboxing. Cut from the Miyagi cloth the mentor is played by an actor who can barely kick – therefore every time he demonstrates a move we cut to a wide shot of somebody else. Mostly his training technique is torture and invocations to hear with the mind. Of course he has a niece who VanDamme must fall in love with (just to prove he’s not really gay – despite the vest tops) after they initially fall out. VanDamme’s seduction technique consists almost entirely of inappropriate leering. Add in some ridiculous symbolism (an eagle! Ancient warriors!) and some extra motivation (the bad guys have stabbed the master’s dog, and kidnapped the brother, and raped the girl) VanDamme’s ready to take to the ring. And you know how this goes: he loses badly until his brother is released, the dog perks up, the girl gets over her attack and he finally hears with his mind. Suddenly it’s all over.

A terrible film, cheaply made and badly acted, the direction is serviceable at best but includes some filters so poor even Jerry Bruckheimer would think twice…. but late on a Friday? Awesome.